Yes, shadowbanning is real.

It's probably happening on all the platforms, and most people probably don't even know it's happening to them.

Feb 17, 2025

You will not always know it's happening to you unless someone discovers it or you deliberately check for it.

Youtube shadowbanning, 2025.

This is a livestream chat for The David Feldman Show, where I could see my chat comment from the account that I used to make the comment, but not with my other account.

This is a livestream chat for The New Republic livestream, where I could see my chat comment from the account that I used to make the comment, but not with my other account. And the same thing happened on The David Feldman Show livestream.

This is a livestream chat for The Leftist Mafia, where I could see my chat comment from the account that I used to make the comment, but not with my other account.

This is a livestream chat for The Leftist Mafia, where I could see my chat comment from the account that I used to make the comment, but not with my other account.

Tumblr shadowbanning, 2024.

For at least a few months I didn’t have that much engagement on Tumblr. And then someone told me that when they searched for tags I was using a lot, and my posts tagged with them were not found in search. I found some old posts of literally photos of Jupiter and a kitten gif that were flagged as “sexually explicit” – so I sent a support ticket to tumblr, and they confirmed that I was indeed shadow banned by spam filters and they unlocked my account from that status at that point, and engagement exponentially increased almost immediately.

My support ticket message to tumblr support: Oct 27, 2024, 4:01PM EDT My posts don't show up in searches, my friend said they couldn't find my posts searching for tags I use often. So someone told me to see if I can reply, and I tried replying to a post and it said "hit a snag". Then I checked the "flagged" posts and found these old posts of Jupiter - the planet - reblogged from space pictures and htey were marked sexually explicit. Also an NPR reblog from years ago that was marked sexually explicit - from NPR. There's nothing to do but delete those I "appealed" the cat gif one that was marked explicit and that was resolved. What is going on? Has my account been mistaken for something explicit? I never posted anything explicit even when it was allowed!

My support ticket message to tumblr support: Oct 27, 2024, 4:01PM EDT My posts don't show up in searches, my friend said they couldn't find my posts searching for tags I use often. So someone told me to see if I can reply, and I tried replying to a post and it said "hit a snag". Then I checked the "flagged" posts and found these old posts of Jupiter - the planet - reblogged from space pictures and htey were marked sexually explicit. Also an NPR reblog from years ago that was marked sexually explicit - from NPR. There's nothing to do but delete those I "appealed" the cat gif one that was marked explicit and that was resolved. What is going on? Has my account been mistaken for something explicit? I never posted anything explicit even when it was allowed!

Reply from: Tumblr Trust & Safety (tumblr) Nov 13, 2024, 3:34PM EST Hello, Your blog was restricted by our anti-spam control. We've restored full functionality of your blog. We're sorry for the inconvenience! Thanks, Tumblr Trust & Safety https://www.tumblr.com/abuse

Reply from: Tumblr Trust & Safety (tumblr) Nov 13, 2024, 3:34PM EST Hello, Your blog was restricted by our anti-spam control. We've restored full functionality of your blog. We're sorry for the inconvenience! Thanks, Tumblr Trust & Safety https://www.tumblr.com/abuse

Obviously I’m glad they block spam. But it is possible to run afoul of tumblr controls. After they restored my tumblr - the engagement exponentially increased. It was definitely a big difference.

Twitter shadowbanning, 2023.

Note that I blogged about this in 2024, but the actual shadowbanning was happening in 2023 (after Elon Musk took over Twitter).

The Shadowbanning of Nicolas Smit Chloe Humbert Mar 26, 2024 Nicolas Smit Jan 19, 2023, 5:45 PM: "The creepiest part is if people wouldn’t have let me know it was happening, I would’ve never found out because Twitter made it so if I searched, everything would show up as normal."

Screenshot of direct message conversation. Screenshot of shadowban checking service. Text reads Search suggestion ban. Search Suggestion Ban This type of ban causes an account to not populate search suggestions and people search results when it is searched for while being logged out. Twitter seems to take tie strength or a similar metric into account. While an account may be suggested to users you are strongly tied to, it may not be shown to others. Search ban. No ghost ban. No reply deboosting detected. @PPEtoheros exists.Search suggestion ban. Search ban

Screenshot of direct message conversation. Screenshot of shadowban checking service. Text reads Search suggestion ban. Search Suggestion Ban This type of ban causes an account to not populate search suggestions and people search results when it is searched for while being logged out. Twitter seems to take tie strength or a similar metric into account. While an account may be suggested to users you are strongly tied to, it may not be shown to others. Search ban. No ghost ban. No reply deboosting detected. PPEtoheros exists.Search suggestion ban. Search ban

The important bottom line here is to never assume that social media is effective communication. Especially when it comes to communicating with elected politicians. In fact, sometimes they actively and openly block people from even finding another way to communicate. We the people always have this barrier between us on social media platforms. It’s invisible to most, and manipulated by some. But it’s an artificial arbitrator deciding who sees what and who gets heard. And all the platforms do it, from Google searches to Tiktok algorithms, whether you think it’s working well or not, it’s always something or someone else pulling the strings between us and our fellow humans.

Chloe Humbert